A critique and review of the Fighter class

[Minigiant]

"And the fighter has the 2nd worst rolls outside of combat."

I am sorry, but how is this even a statement. The second worst at what? Athletics? Acrobatics? And what about the third 14? That accounts for something, somewhere? How about this, if you want to be a fighter who rocks at skills, convince the DM to use feats and take Skilled. Better yet, if you are using point buy, take the three 13s and 3 12s. Combine it with Skilled, use Tasha's Tool option, and you have quite the skilled fighter.

There is 1 Strength Based Skill
There are 3 Dexterity Based Skills
There are 0 Constitution Based Skills
There are 5 Intelligence Based Skills
There are 5 Wisdom Based Skills
There are 4 Charisma Based Skills

Social Interaction Primarily uses Wisdom and Charisma Checks
Exploration Primary uses Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Wisdom Checks

A Fighter's Primary and Secondary Scores are Strength and Dexterity. So a fighter's base ability focus matches up with 4/13 Exploration Skills and 0/5 Social Skills.

Every other class except the barbarian can do better the 4/13 and 0/5 AND/OR has a base class feature to increase that number (Such as Expertise, Favored Enemy, or Jack of All Trades).

The fighter has the 2nd worst rolls outside of combat.

 

[tetrasodium]

A fighter that limits himself to a 14 strength (assuming it's a strength built fighter) is REALLY gimping himself - it's not a "measly +1"

The fighter is limited to the only the 3rd best armor (chain mail), they cannot wear splint or plate ( well not effectively, nonproficiency in armor is BAD, unless it's mithril, but that's outside this scope). That's 1 to 2 AC less. Now granted this is not a level 1 problem, but it's 100% a level 3-4+ problem. This alone is bad!

The fighter doesn't just have a -1 to hit he ALSO has a -1 to damage. This double whammy adds up quick. DO the math and you'll see it's not an insignificant hit to DPR (and yes DPR isn't everything but for the fighter, it's a lot). And that's vs a 16 strength. If he chose to go a 2nd round of ASIs without increasing strength? That's going to be huge difference.

The fighter ALSO has a -1 to all strength saves AND ability checks. A big loss considering he doesn't have magic to bridge the gap and these are supposed to be his thing.

Not Quite:

Spoiler: PHB144

Heavy Armor. Heavier arm or interferes with the wearer’s ability to move quickly, stealthily, and freely. If the Armor table show s “Str 13” or “Str 15” in the Strength column for an arm or type, the armor reduces the wearer’s speed by 10 feet unless the wearer has a Strength score equal to or higher than the listed score.

Dwarf even ignores that penalty & at least one race has a speed bump that negates it. Combat in 5e is so static & unmoving that it hardly has any impact for a dex build or a strength build that isn't strength enough to wear heavy armor.

Why would those builds do that?.. easy, put a nice enough nonac bonus on it after adding the associated effect to 5e, I've seen players do it with 3.x style DR & resistance once they noticed monsters tend to deal elemental damage pretty often instead of just b/p/s

 

[lingual]

And where exactly has someone claimed that you can't take Persuasion as a Fighter? I'm interested to see any posts.

And who has said that fighters "must not be "outshined" by Bards" in the social pillar? I'm interested to see posts.

And who has said all fighters are hobo bums? I'm interested to see posts.

Or is it literally impossible for a fighter to be a hobo bum? Because my bringing up that fighters might be that was a rebuttal to your attempt at special pleading by assigning the role of hero to the fighter and wandering minstrel with no means of support other than what they can persuade people to give them to the bard. I pointed out that we can easily reverse those roles. There is nothing inherent in the fighter that means they will be a hero and the bard won't. (But there are things the bard can do to help that the fighter can't).

Please stop with the strawmen.

You just said in your previous post that Bards can have Expertise and fighters can't. Doesn't that mean outshine? So decent CHA and Persuasion are not good enough cuz from Bard school can "do better" (ie. "outshine").

Yes. I think Fighters are more identifiable to common NPCs than Wizards, Clerics, etc. And a low CHA fighter is not going to socially hampered if they are renowned and just saved the crops from burning. Maybe you play your game differently and require Persuasion checks to order an egg McMuffin. I really don't know.

No. I'm not gonna go around digging posts to continue this stupid argument. I've already wasted enough time in trying to convince ppl that I find fighter are ok. So I guess you win ok? Your prize is convincing me that I've been playing the game wrong all this time.

No I didn't say you said "all fighters are bums". You the straw man.

 

[Minigiant]

I think that's missing the point a bit here. For example, I don't call for Persuasion checks, etc. that don't make any sense. That is, the social pillar is not dominated by dice rolls. A Hero (Fighter, Cleric, whatever) who just rescued the village children is going to have more "Charisma" than some wandering Bard who happens to have expertise in Persuasion. Depends on the situation of course, but I just don't want the Social Pillar to devolve into dice rolls with no actual interaction.

That's favoritism and called out as a flaw of ignoring dice in the DMG on page 236.

When I DM the social pillar, I don't ignore roleplay. I let background (something all classes get to choose.). I give give PCs who get languages for race a nod as they would be most fluent in them than languages from background and class.

But I don't let the PCs change the situation to be more beneficial to them without at least one roll of a dice at some point. I don't let a player put a 8 in their character's Charisma in order to slide their 14 into Constitution then talk their way out of Social interaction as a player unless it's a hack'n'slash game.

5e was based and balanced around Ability Scores Checks and Contests. 1e wasn't. 2e wasn't. 3e and 4e were. Once you start ignoring checks and contests in 3e, 4e, or 5e, the table needs to adjust rules and rulings.

 

[Mort]

Not Quite:

Spoiler: PHB144

Heavy Armor. Heavier arm or interferes with the wearer’s ability to move quickly, stealthily, and freely. If the Armor table show s “Str 13” or “Str 15” in the Strength column for an arm or type, the armor reduces the wearer’s speed by 10 feet unless the wearer has a Strength score equal to or higher than the listed score.

Dwarf even ignores that penalty & at least one race has a speed bump that negates it. Combat in 5e is so static & unmoving that it hardly has any impact for a dex build or a strength build that isn't strength enough to wear heavy armor.

Why would those builds do that?.. easy, put a nice enough nonac bonus on it after adding the associated effect to 5e, I've seen players do it with 3.x style DR & resistance once they noticed monsters tend to deal elemental damage pretty often instead of just b/p/s

You know, that's correct, I somehow substituted non-proficiency with too low strength. the movement penalty isn't that bad, but it is something. Rest is correct though.

 

[Mort]

Not Quite:

Spoiler: PHB144

Heavy Armor. Heavier arm or interferes with the wearer’s ability to move quickly, stealthily, and freely. If the Armor table show s “Str 13” or “Str 15” in the Strength column for an arm or type, the armor reduces the wearer’s speed by 10 feet unless the wearer has a Strength score equal to or higher than the listed score.

Dwarf even ignores that penalty & at least one race has a speed bump that negates it. Combat in 5e is so static & unmoving that it hardly has any impact for a dex build or a strength build that isn't strength enough to wear heavy armor.

You certainly do see that a lot (the static just stand there combat) but it SHOULDN'T be that way.

DMs can change that with a bit of work, but the books (particularly the DMG) should showcase it more - especially combats that have goals other than reduce the other side to 0.

 

[tetrasodium]

You know, that's correct, I somehow substituted non-proficiency with too low strength. the movement penalty isn't that bad, but it is something. Rest is correct though.

Yea. 5e bends over backwards to ensure that things like a middling strength strength fighter with points in charisma or something won't be meaningfully impacted, they just failed to include rules that make such a thing worthy charop or ignored what years of evidence show when human nature meets charop generates.

You certainly do see that a lot (the static just stand there combat) but it SHOULDN'T be that way.

DMs can change that with a bit of work, but the books (particularly the DMG) should showcase it more - especially combats that have goals other than reduce the other side to 0.

it actually takes quite a bit of work from the GM, rules that d&d 5e are kinda lacking in & digital tools that weren't at all robust enough to support it 7 years ago. With things like touch enabled VTTs intended for meatspace gaming it's barely even there today let alone 7 years ago

Spoiler: Here's a combat from a recent session

If my count is right that's 78x82(I suspect it's not) & tbh that's probably only about half the map itself.
Players started with 4 bandits* at the red circle & pretty much immediately killed about 1.5 of them causing 3 bandits to disengage & run like hell in the green arrow directions while calling for help. 4 more bandits came from each of the yellow arrows while the crunchy types were (eventually) on the se side & squishies in nw side but the NW bandits were not noticed by the squishies until the crunchy types were all in the SE side of the circle.

Yea there was a lot of movement, but all of it was because players didn't know what was being used & how much danger they were (not at all) in with the party cleric out. Much of the movement was a result of too many trees for the squishy ranged PCs to get line of sight but d&d5e even offers a few ways to ignore the sort of partial cover that the trees would have imposed.

Had it not been coincidence that players went to the middle camp it would have required some degree of quantum ogre'ing of the camps & this level of wide scale thing week after week 6-8x/adventuring day is just not a reasonable bar for the system to expect from a GM.

Doing this indoors would likely have resulted in a TPK rocks fall type swarm because casters no longer have their ace in the back pocket spells for when things go sideways like in the past & nobody has shadowrun style break glass in case of emergency tools.... Sure the spells exist, they just don't have enough oomph to matter

* role not statblock
edit: Judging from the Vecna statblock empty room & lack of Vecna allies it doesn't seem like wotc's even pretending that it's possible for the kind of rolling dynamic combats that d&d5e's tactical simplicity was supposed to put front & center are even reasonable.

 

[Neonchameleon]

You just said in your previous post that Bards can have Expertise and fighters can't. Doesn't that mean outshine? So decent CHA and Persuasion are not good enough cuz from Bard school can "do better" (ie. "outshine").

The word you used was "must". There is nothing saying fighters "must not outshine bards". Merely that if a bard is even vaguely trying the fighter pretty much can't other than through extreme optimisation at the cost of their abilities as a fighter. This isn't about must but can.

So thank you for confirming this was a straw man.

Yes. I think Fighters are more identifiable to common NPCs than Wizards, Clerics, etc.

Wearing heavy armour and carrying large weapons does indeed make them more identifiable than sensible people with less uncomfortable and unwieldy equipment. On this we can agree. It also makes them more scary and intimidating than people who may be more powerful but aren't walking into the inn with so much hardware that is both visible and uncomfortable.

And if they take their armour and weapons off? They don't have the word "fighter" stamped on their forehead and are less recognisable than people who don't normally cover themselves so completely in metal making themselves unrecognisable.

And a low CHA fighter is not going to socially hampered if they are renowned and just saved the crops from burning.

The fighter is likely to be no more responsible for saving the crops from burning than the rest of the party. Indeed they are less likely to be responsible than someone with e.g. the Shape Water cantrip to help put the fire out. And if a charismatic and an uncharismatic character helped that doesn't narrow the gap.

So what happened here? A 1:1 roleplay session with only the party member least able to save the crops from burning just so they have some social benefits.

Maybe you play your game differently and require Persuasion checks to order an egg McMuffin. I really don't know.

I play the game as a group game where in general if one party member helped do something they all did.

No. I'm not gonna go around digging posts to continue this stupid argument. I've already wasted enough time in trying to convince ppl that I find fighter are ok. So I guess you win ok? Your prize is convincing me that I've been playing the game wrong all this time.

No. My prize is, or should be, getting to stop you from making posts with multiple straw men in them in order to defend the assertion that the fighter isn't weak. And using as a baseline that the fighter took part in adventures other party members didn't.

No I didn't say you said "all fighters are bums". You the straw man.

And one more straw man by you capping your post. I didn't say you said that, I asked what you to clarify one of your strawmen. I gave you a range of possible interpretations that I could understand.

But I'm not interested in wasting more time on your special fighter adventures, ignoring the rules, and platoons of strawmen. Goodbye

 

[Scott Christian]

And here again the comparative ineptitude of the fighter is exposed. A bard can be a hero just as well as a fighter can - and if we're talking PCs it's most likely to be both or neither that saved the village. But a bard can also have expertise in Persuasion that stacks on top of being a hero.

In addition to this the fighter can be some wandering bum like the bard - but with no expertise in persuasion. And the bard can either (a) heal or (b) entertain the village with the help of illusions in ways that the fighter simply can't.

This is highly dependent though, right?

I mean, the bard (for trope sake) has the adoration of those physically attracted to them and children. But maybe, the mayor, an old fighter himself, appreciates the fighter much more. There is a context here, a mental tally the DM must do, in order to shape the world. I have found for me, as DM, to not have too many notable NPCs. This makes those encounters truer and more varied. So a group of kids likes the bard and he sleeps around - that is literally three or four sentences of narration. A deep talk from an NPC is much more.

 

[Scott Christian]

A fighter that limits himself to a 14 strength (assuming it's a strength built fighter) is REALLY gimping himself - it's not a "measly +1"

Edited out the part re: strength and armor. Penalty is only -10 ft movement which is annoying but not ridiculous.

The fighter doesn't just have a -1 to hit he ALSO has a -1 to damage. This double whammy adds up quick. DO the math and you'll see it's not an insignificant hit to DPR (and yes DPR isn't everything but for the fighter, it's a lot). And that's vs a 16 strength. If he chose to go a 2nd round of ASIs without increasing strength? That's going to be huge difference.

The fighter ALSO has a -1 to all strength saves AND ability checks. A big loss considering he doesn't have magic to bridge the gap and these are supposed to be his thing.

I agree, it all adds up. I agree, that when the character sheet is in front of a player, it adds up. I agree, that someone comparing can feel inadequate.

That said, it is an imaginary wall built by the same player. We all build them, for all sorts of reasons. But it is imaginary, because in no way shape or form, does that +1 change the outcome of 99% of group fights, nor does it suddenly make the fighter exploring with a group any less valid. The latter is especially true, since the exploration pillar is more about listening, problem solving, and imagination than rolling a die.